


Rat

by GerbilOfDestiny



Category: The Last of Us (Video Games)
Genre: Horror, brief mentions of Abby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:09:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27383221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GerbilOfDestiny/pseuds/GerbilOfDestiny
Summary: A brief horror piece from the perspective of the infamous boss from The Last of Us: Part II.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Rat

Twenty-five years ago they trapped us in this room because they feared us. They were afraid of what we were, of what we represented and what we could become. They abhorred us, mistreated us, considered us to no longer be flesh and blood.

And we killed them for it.

Sealed inside that room, we surrendered ourselves to the spores. Those who were supposed to treat us abandoned us and so the infection spread and spread, making us into something that was no longer human. Runners. Clickers. Stalkers. Bloaters. Shambles. Our evolution was continuous. Our hunger was never-ending.

Unable to sustain ourselves by eating those who were infected, we allowed nature to take its course. The survival of the fittest demanded that we be the ones who lived to take back the world the doctors had denied us.

They wished us to die alone. 

They wished us to die as separate entities.

Nature threw that back in their faces.

We became one, our bodies fusing themselves into a single organism that surpassed all others. We no longer had the putrid strength or a Runner or the need to hide like the Stalkers. We outreached everything those individuals could ever hope to achieve.

Our strength was unsurpassed by anything in this world and we used it to our advantage.

We broke down the doors that had once contained us. 

We tore through the hospital.

We found stragglers. People who had come to strip us of our inheritance, to take our territory as their own. Men, women and children. All craving what we craved.

Yet there can only be one ruler in a place as small as this.

So we slaughtered them all!! We ripped them to pieces, consumed them, amalgamated even more into the collective that is our body. Those who saw us would scream and run but it never did them any good. They never got far.

They gave us a name. A new name unlike any other.. Monster. Abomination. The Rat King. 

Our hunger was sated in a single night of death. 

Human weapons pose no threat to us. They make us bleed, tear out chunks of flesh, but we are strong. We are resilient. Anything they do to us can never be enough to rob us off the new life nature has gifted us.

We patrolled our territory for many days and many nights, eager to repeat the experiences of that first night of freedom. Yet for all the noises that came in the hospital above no one ever seemed willing to come down further. 

We were abandoned once again while our hunger kept on growing.

So we slept. How many days, how many years, we don’t know. We just found a place in this dark world of ours and rested, biding our time until new prey came to us.

Now something new is out there. We can hear it walking, scraping, pushing and pulling. It breaks us out of our slumber. The time to hunt has come once more,

We are barely up on our feet when the nearby door handle moves. Someone is on the other side, trying to break in. The handle moves and the door is pushed but it does not open. It is stuck and the newcomer makes no more attempts to open it. Whoever it is is weak and feeble, unable to match our power. They are insignificant compared to our evolutioonary glory. They are the perfect prey.

We slam our many arms upon the door and yet this time it is of no avail. The doors don’t break. Our strength has not failed us. No, the fungus that created us has just grown around the doors to keep them shut.

Our senses heighten at the prospect of the hunt. A dozen mouths gnashing away in anticipation, arms resting by our sides as we await the moment to strike. It is so close, so close. We must feed. We must consume.

We must find another way around.

We stalk the hallways, trying to find any sign of this newcomer but every time we think we are close they just seem to get away. Sounds are everywhere. So many distractions.

Some of us try to break away from the core, each one eager to hunt as one, as if they have chosen to abandon the form nature has made for ourselves. We must go on, we must persist. 

The world around us changes. Doors that had remained shut for decades now open and shut around us, lights flicker on and off, those Infected that were once trapped like us are now free to roam these halls once more.

We are no longer alone.

Yet the abundance of infected ups the stakes. Any one of these could claim the prize. Any one of these could consume the newcomer before we even get close. 

That cannot happen. We must feed! 

We choose to remain silent, not wishing to startle our prey or to draw others to our hunt. The prey is ours and what happens next can only happen through us. No one else may come and take our claim.

We drop into water. A putrid mess that has overtaken this place. We can feel the cold around our feet, the splashes surely letting others know what we do not wish them to know. 

Yet the newcomer is close as well. We can hear it moving through the water, saying words we can no longer understand, as it moves across rhe area. It does not see us.

We keep on moving.

It’s close to us.

We can smell it.

Taste it.

All we can do is keep going, our senses going into a frenzied overdrive as the need to consume grows and grows. Man or woman, we do not need to know. Alive or dead, we do not care. All we need is to feed.

There! A noise in the ambulance.

Let us feast.

**Author's Note:**

> So this was my first piece for AO3 and I’m really hoping you all love it as much as I do.


End file.
